A little off the application but... has anybody been following the grounding of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner ? Two had fires involving LI batteries, one on the ground and one in flight. I'm no expert on these batteries but it seems like if they have a history of catching laptops and cell phones on fire, a little more thought should have gone into its selection.
From what I have read, There are two sets of these on the aircraft, one under the cockpit and one in the tail section. Each set is about the size of two car batteries.They are used for starting the APU's and were selected because they recharge quickly and are lighter than traditional nickel cadmiums. Lighter? It comes down to about 22 pounds lighter per set, or 12 pairs of jeans. Now 50 of these are grounded and all deliveries halted. Investigators have no clue why this happened. Originally they thought it was due to over voltage but later discovered one of the incidents was not. The charging unit will not give any clues because it burned up in the same compartment as the batteries. Retrofitting to traditional technologies will be expensive. While not a problem yet, I hope the aluminum wiring that was also selected for this aircraft doesn't become one some day. I seem to remember is was discontinued for use in mobile homes years ago due to fires. So let's throw it on an airplane. This will all get fixed but what an example of penny wise and pound foolish.
From what I have read, There are two sets of these on the aircraft, one under the cockpit and one in the tail section. Each set is about the size of two car batteries.They are used for starting the APU's and were selected because they recharge quickly and are lighter than traditional nickel cadmiums. Lighter? It comes down to about 22 pounds lighter per set, or 12 pairs of jeans. Now 50 of these are grounded and all deliveries halted. Investigators have no clue why this happened. Originally they thought it was due to over voltage but later discovered one of the incidents was not. The charging unit will not give any clues because it burned up in the same compartment as the batteries. Retrofitting to traditional technologies will be expensive. While not a problem yet, I hope the aluminum wiring that was also selected for this aircraft doesn't become one some day. I seem to remember is was discontinued for use in mobile homes years ago due to fires. So let's throw it on an airplane. This will all get fixed but what an example of penny wise and pound foolish.
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